We drove 90 miles west from Manahattan to Nazareth, Pa in to visit the CF Martin Guitar Factory. Our mission was to pick up the custom made guitar which was made for one in our group, meet the people who used their considerable skills to create the guitar, and to take the tour of the factory. If you are a musician, especially a guitarist, you know why this is a type of pilgrimage and  you would appreciate how this is an extremely exciting event. We had waited eight months for the guitar to created. Over 60 skilled craftspeople worked on it. Only about 30 custom made guitars are produced by Martin each year, and about 200 regular instruments each week.

We were greeted by Dan, the wirey and warm and charming head of the custom department and he took us through the large building which is divided into sections and cubby work stations, into the section of the factory devoted to custom production. 

Dan put the case on the table and our guitarist opened and saw his new instrument for the first time. Love, love at first sight and love, love at first play. A new instrument actually improves with time which is amazing to consider since this guitar has such a rich tone and is so responsive. The guitarist’s signature and date of birth are in-laid on the head and neck of his new guitar.

Then we took the tour of the factory. We started at the beginning, we passed the many different woods which are used in guitar making, ready to be cut , shaped and glued, and finished into an instrument. We passed through all of the different stages of the process.

The most moving aspect were the workers. The majority seemed to be women, although there were plenty of men as well. All focused on the particular skill. Making bridges, shaving interior braces, bending the pieces for the sides, assembling and gluing pieces, gluing in the carefully cut slivers of Mother-of-Pearl for decoration, sanding, finishing, etc.  Some looked up for a moment as we passed and smiled. The last people in the process test the guitars by playing them. This is their job…to play guitars all day…it is considered the best of all of the jobs. The factory is one of the two largest employers in Nazareth and some families have worked for generation at this factory.

Photos of famous guitarists holding their Martin’s line the factory walls, and the tour ends at a display of guitars that visitors may play and try out.

The factory building has a museum on the history of guitar making and the history of Martin guitars. There is also a shop selling lots of Martin paraphanalia but no guitars which are only sold through dealers and not directly from the factory. 

It is wonderful to see that skill and craft still exist, and that such a wonderful pleasure-giving instrument is made of a precious natural material, wood. The Martin factory believes that many woods used in guitar making will not be available in just a few years and they are developing instruments made of composite materials…

The Martin Guitar and the Martin Guitar Factory are an American treasure.

On May 8, many Rabbis, perhaps 75 in all, gathered at  the Merchants Gate of Central Park, at Columbus Circle, to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary with Rabbis For Human Rights.   This is a busy spot in New York, it is an entrance to Cental Park, with people going to and from work, pedi-cabs waiting for fares, tourists reading maps and sitting on the steps of the monument to the Maine, teens leaving school, lots of foot and vehicle traffic etc.

It was very moving to be there with singer-songwriter Debbie Friedman and Rabbi Simkha Weintraub of the National Center for Jewish Healing  as they lead a traditional Mincha (Afternoon) Service, right there in street with the blessed chaos of New York swirling near-by. Passers-by stopped to listen and watch. The rain came and went. Two trees for peace were symbolically planted.

Rabbi Gordon Tucker presented an excellent teaching based on a  a commentary on Israel’s Declaration of Independence developed by the RHR Human Rights Yeshiva in Jerusalem. His teaching and the RHR mission is clearly posted on their website.

It stregnthens hope to share this possitive and moving experience with friends, especially during these times which are so full of suffering and violence around the world.

The elite New York private school, Horace Mann, is the focus of an excellent expose in New York Magazine. The most shocking aspect is the amount of outright pure racist and anti-woman  hate the article exposes as seemingly tolerated, and even defended (!) by some on the Board of Directors, administration and students.

The school’s website states the school’s purpose and focus:

Horace Mann has changed in many ways but remains steadfastly dedicated to five core values: The Life of the Mind, Mature Behavior, Mutual Respect, A Secure and Healthful Environment, and A Balance between Individual Achievement and a Caring Community.

If there is any truth in the article it would mean that the Horace Mann School has utterly failed in achieving it’s own stated goals.

This brings up some important issues that go far beyond the shockingly bad behavior of a privileged elite that sees itself as entitled to be served and catered to no matter what it does or says.

First: How and why did the City of New York help fund a wealthy private school by issuing a bond when the public schools suffer? How dare they? How many other private schools have been helped this way? Why exactly, was this school helped by the city government?

Second: Look at how this group considers everyone, even professionals such as educators, to be their servants and “hired help”. And this is what they have modeled for their children.

Third: Isn’t there a relationship between the attitude and values taught by this elite and those who feed the extreme disrespect for women which we see in the media in this current presidential campaign? And they have DEFENDED racism as well?

Fourth: Why would anyone send a daughter to this school?

Fifth: How many other private schools behave this way?

New York City is full of wonderful, talented, smart and really goods kids who deserve a good education and preparation for the future. We must support public education as the cornerstone to a healthy, creative, productive society and a continuing good future. Public School should not be treated as an “entitlement program” to be disrespected and underfunded.

Parents should teach children the core value of respect for teachers by their very own behavior.

Money never buys class.

………

Comment by NYCGUY:

A few years ago, while crossing Broadway on the Upper West Side, I overhead the conversation of a young boy and his father.

The child expressed a desire to copy the career of his favorite teacher and his parent replied that that would be an inappropriate pursuit.

To hear something like that and in such a neighborhood was utterly shocking. So maybe the esteem I had learned for Horace Mann was equally ill-placed. This is, after all, an epoch of an all voluntary armed forces subject to stop loss, which is nothing other than involuntary servitude, serfdom if one wishes to give it a polite name.

What really got me was the story inside the story about this prestigious private, tax exempt school getting a substantial tax free loan from the city’s so-called Economic Development Corporation, facilitated by the city’s corporation counsel under its preceding mayor for whom this chap remains a loyal business partner.

This perfectly legal transaction whereby EDC makes like the NYS Dormitory Authority for very high tuition K-12 private schools - parochial schools included - is a hallmark of the current mayoralty that just happens to have saddled Horace Mann with considerable debt.

Ostensibly the beneficiaries provide an undefined high level of scholarships and public service. Apparently, the private schools are better integrated than the city’s own public schools - which have no boards with any effective parental input - because, obviously, they’re creaming from the body of perspective students.

Lost in this is that public schools are intended to create an educated citizenry and that the city is using its federally capped industrial revenue bond authority to benefit elite institutions not subject to endless teach-to-testing while its own system has cut back capital expenditures for school renovations  and new construction. Is something amiss?

Maybe the Horace Mann students understand the “respect” they’re given does not accrue to their teachers or perhaps even the gifted scholarship classmates.

NYCGUY

We ferried out to Ellis Island. What a pleasure it is to be out on the water of the harbor on a cool, clear day. Although Harbor Seals have been spotted as far north as the 79th Street Boat Basin  this season, we did not spot any in the water that Sunday but enjoyed seeing the city, The Statue  of Liberty, and the soaring gulls and many Brandts.

Ellis Island opened a new, temporary exhibit on March 30, 2008, called “Visas for Life” which documents in photos, the extraordinary efforts of many diplomats during the Holocaust to use the power of their offices to issue visas for Jews fleeing Nazi control. They did this against the orders of their superiors and risked a high personal price for their actions. They saved many hundreds of thousands people from being murdered by their moral and courageous action. It is a very worthwhile exhibit. 

I attended as a representative of Remember the Women Institute and serve on the Advisory Board.

There is a wonderful portrait of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese Consul to Lithuania and his wife, who saved more than 10000 Jews.

Many current diplomats and the families of rescuers, and a few survivors attended the opening event and their stories where told, and awards of thanks and recognition were made.

The Italian diplomat spoke so well when he said that “diplomats are not generally known for being courageous or brave but of hoping for a comfortable assignment”. Several family members of a Papal Nuncio who helped rescue many Jews travelled from Italy to accept an award in his honor and spoke with great warmth and emotion.  The niece of Raoul Wallenberg attended. The Swiss diplomat spoke so refreshingly frankly about what Switzerland had done wrong as well as right during the Nazi period. Seated next to us where diplomats from Germany. We spoke personally with Bill Bingham, pictured above, Hiram Bingham IV’s son, about the role of his father in issuing American visas and saving many people, and how this limited his father’s diplomatic career.

It was an event filled with good feeling, and extremely moving stories of how people can make an extraordinary difference by acting in good conscience. An event which truly affirmed the power of good in people.

Afterwards, the honorees, families, attendees and diplomats, waited on line with the general  public and ordered their lunch at the fast food cafeteria in the museum.

Welcome to modern America.

These gleaming, graceful candlesticks are absolutely not for sale.

They have no price.

They were made and purchased in Europe and my beloved Grandmother z”l brought them with her when she and her family traveled by ship across the Atlantic, as they came to start their new life of freedom in New York City.

The candlesticks were made between about 1880 and 1900 in Poland which was under under Czarist rule at that time. The family (and the candlesticks) were very lucky to get here.

On holidays, such as Passover, my grandmother used these tall candlesticks, which she placed on the long white lace tablecloth and they gleamed! She also had a shorter pair she used for each Shabbat, which my cousin now owns.

Over time, the silver had become so worn with use and many polishings that they needed the skill of a silversmith to restore the silver for more generations of enjoyment.

After a good deal of research, I found a silversmith that I could trust with this job. His shop is a narrow, grimy, old building, squeezed between larger old buildings just off of Times Square. Since New York is constantly renewing itself, you know as you step into the teeny space that functions as a “lobby” that within just a few years this will be torn down and a gleaming tower will stand on this spot.

His shop is a pleasant mess of work waiting to be done, being done, waiting to be picked up. They were ready to be taken home, as promised, in just a week. He did a splendid job.

Soon enough, the candlesticks will regain the more subtle, burnished look of use.

On March 18, 2008, Purim and Good Friday coincided, something that has not occurred since 1910 and will not happen again for about 75 years. On the happy, boisterous Jewish holiday of Purim, we celebrate how the courage of Queen Esther saved the Jewish people, complete with story-telling, masks, noisemakers and costumes.

On the Upper West West, we had both happy Purim celebrators, and solemn street processions, originating from local churches were in the streets carrying effigies, crucifixes and even a mock coffin.

We spend Purim eve in the wonderful, pleasant, unpretentious, chaos of Congregation Ansche Chesed. The service for young children was packed with families and many young Queen Esthers, Mordachais, kings and others like 5 year old Batman (who loved his costume and paraded back and forth in front of the young Esthers). The adult service had stranger costumes, and the “scotch club”  circulated offering shots. Fun!

The next day, Purim and Good Friday, I went with a friend to the historic Spanish and Portuguese Synagoguebut we learned that we had missed the morning service. The cantor, Rabbi Rohde, gave us the most generous Purim gift: he read the entire megillah (story of Esther) for us in a beautiful, historic side chapel. A friend of his and her young daughter joined us there. He did this for the four of us. What a generous and kind man! This congregation is always welcoming but this was extaordinary.

So, on this day, both traditions mixed easily and comfortably. In the difficult history of the past in Europe, Good Friday was often a day for attacks on Jews. My mother who was born in Poland, told us that on Good Friday they were not allowed outdoors by their parents in order to keep them safe. Thankfully, we live in quite a different world.

Queen Esther and Easter, names from an even older religious past of the ancient Earth Goddess of the mid-east, met and got along just fine on today’s the Upper West Side.

Many have seen the lovely artist’s rendering of 535 West End avenue as it appears in many ads and asked about a photo, so here it is: a photo of the actual construction site taken on March 19, 2008, which was a gray and very rainy day.

Notice the sign which says “21st Century Pre-War Residences”?  in New York’s housing market, “pre-war” usually means it was built before World War II, but clearly the builders of 535 West End mean to say something else by using this phrase.  Notice the people with umbrellas and peace signs? These are West Siders assembling for a silent solemn march to protest and mark the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq. Makes one wonder what the builders know about wars…hmmm…

(See posting of January 17, 2008 for more about this building)

The protesters walked silently down Broadway from 86th Street and a few hundred protesters assembled at Verdi Square, at Broadway between 72nd and 73rd Street. It is a small triangular slip of a “square” and has a Carrara marble monument to the composer Verdi with his characters Falstaff, Leonora of La Forza del Destino, Aida, and Otello, some trees and bushes, and a long subway entrance structure.  Evening subway commuters arriving home in the rain, rushed past on their way home through the large crowd.

It was a silent, older and peaceful group, and the statue of Verdi was not toppled, of course. The great composer’s beautiful foray into the Middle East was some time ago and still sometimes features elephants but never trains.

When Eliot Spitzer decided to run for public office, he himself knew better than anyone could imagine, the best reason why he absolutely should not enter public service. He did so anyway.

Also, as an attorney and as a prosecutor, he must have known that when pimps and prostitutes are arrested, they cooperate with the authorities and give up the names of all of their contacts. Yet, he did this anyway.

He risked blackmail, legal charges, loosing family and public respect. Yet, he did this anyway.

How was able to receive security clearance?

He made New York State, and whoever was in charge of giving him security clearance, look as foolishly corrupt as New Jersey.

Hopefully, David A. Paterson will be a good governor.

We drove from Mont Tremblant to the Alaskan Husky Adventure Dog-Sledding.  We met and held the beautiful puppies, they are large doggies with deep fur and intelligent eyes and they enjoyed our attention, holding and petting.

The site is very hilly, wooded land, with lots of varied terrain.  The 50 or so adult dogs barked and jumped non-stop in excitement until they were hitched up in teams to the sled . We called “Alley, alley- oop!” and they took off, and started to run.  They became silent and happily ran hard. We were two people per sled and six exited dogs per team.

It was like a roller-coaster ride through the snow! Up and down hills and spinning around many turns- fun and exiting! Put this on the “bucket list”.

The next day we snow-shoed through the woods and filled our extended hands with sun-flower seeds and Chickadees came down from the trees and ate out of our mittens. It was a sweet reward for bundling up and going out into the winter.

On the way back to NYC, we stopped off in Montreal for just a day and went to their Beaux Arts Museum to see the retrospective of Cuban Art. The show was fascinating, well installed and there were many fine pieces but the most striking thing is to see anything at all about current Cuban culture. We have been embargoed too. When will we start a new relationship with Cuba? 

During our drive back to New York City, we realized that we take upstate New York  much too forgranted, even though the state is so beautiful. So we will plan a future warm weather trip to the Finger Lakes Region.

Go to www.CentralPark.com  for a photo of the sculpture in Central Park of the famous hero sled dog Balto and his story.

This was the first January in about 75 years that we had no snow of any consequence in New York City, and it has been generally warm, so we decided to drive northward and find our old childhood friend, the Winter.

First we drove through the Hudson Valley and the rolling hills and long ridges of the Hudson Highlands which had some snow on the ground and we realized that the color of the light has started to change towards a spring color. There were no “signs of Spring”, just that change of light quality with the lengthening day. It was a feeling of fading winter with Spring just waiting.

Then we passed through the Shawangunks, pronounced “shan-gums” and known as the “Gunks”, with sleeping snowy apple orchards, and frozen water streams on the mountains until we came to the Catskill region and then to the Adirondacks, “the Daks”, beautiful mountains and valleys and we knew there was indeed Winter here.  There are fields of snow-covered frozen haystacks, creeks running down frozen snow banks on the mountains.

The placenames are so great, from Dutch, Native American, French and English and many other sources:

Niskayuna, Schroon Lake, Fort Ticonaroga, Saranac Lake, Cairo (say Kay-Row), with Lake Pharoah nearby, Paradox (population 14), AuSable Chasm which was frozen-closed for the winter, Troy, Albany, Loon Lake and Brandt Lake, Lake Champlain and Lake George, Watervliet, Rotterdam, Hague, Kaaterskill Falls and the Hurleys.

We reached the border and entered Quebec Province in Canada and all of the road signs warned us ” It’s winter, be careful” in French.

We had “officially” found the winter…and then the winter found us.

We continued past Montreal up to the Laurentians, which look like the Daks, and as we drove we were overtaken by a full winter blizzard of snow and freezing rain. We took the roadsigns advice and we went very slowly as did the other drivers on the icy, slippery road. We arrived in icy-snowy village of Mont-Tremblant well after dark.

We have spent a day exploring the mountain and ski area, and another day enjoying a new snow fall of about 6 inches of huge, fluffy flakes that made very nice snow for snow-balls and snow-people…

…the beloved snow of childhood.

Next few days: We will snow-shoe through a Canadian National Park, stopping to warm up and feed the birds, and then go out Dog-sledding. Very, very exiting.

This weekend we met representitives of the Agahozo Shalom Youth Village who were in town from Rwanda in order to study some new schools here.  The ASYV is a school in Rwanda which hopes to nurture and teach young orphans of that country’s terrible genocide so they may become whole/healed adults capable of becoming leaders. More than one million children were orphaned in Rwanda, so this is a huge task.

ASYV is based on the model of the Israeli Youth Aliyah Village of Yemin Orde which was established in 1953 to accommodate Holocaust orphans and immigrant children and several groups and agencies are involved in this excellent project.

The visitors met with the synagogue members at Congregation Ansche Chesed, an Upper West Side Synagogue, and discussed the school and their hopes for the future for both the children and for their country.  They are survivors of the Rwandan genocide. A synagogue member was able to link them to an organization which provides computers to third world schools for only $100 each. This was good news. All help is appreciated.

As we had lunch, elderly members of the congregation, who are Holocaust survivors, walked up and  simply patted the visitors gently…all understood without the need for any additional words.

Who Will Carry the Word?, by Charlotte Delbo, will be performed by  The Red Fern Theatre Company at Center Stage on West 21st St.

It is based on the true story of Charlotte Delbo, and depicts the lives of 23 women while they were prisoners in Auschwitz.  Their goal was to keep the strongest of them alive so that there could be a witness to what they had experienced, and so the survivor could tell the world.

The theatre  company has chosen to partner with Remember the Women Institute for this play, and the institiute will receive some of the proceeds. I am a member of the Board of the Remember the Women Institute.

At the Saturday evening, March 1 performance,  there will be a special talk-back session afterward that will include an Auschwitz  survivor, Bronia Brandman. Rochelle Saidel, the institute’s Director and I will also be there as well. A reception will follow the performance. Come.

We spent primary night at Lincoln Center enjoying the NY Philharmonic. No matter how many times I have the great pleasure of attending a NY Phil concert, I am first always so moved by the beauty and variety of the hand-made string instruments, the glistening brass, the warm woodwinds and the amount of different objects the percussionist has at hand ready to play.

It reminds me of an animation I saw as a child about the history of the orchestra which claimed that violins ultimately derive from bows and arrows. Something like ..”swords into plowshares.”

The NY Philharmonic has tried it’s hand at making a bridge for diplomacy and cultural sharing in the past with it’s historic visit to China, and this week the orchestra will make another historic  trip and perform in North Korea. The concert in North Korea will be on February 26 and be broadcast on PBS. The program is (Brooklyn born) George Gershwin’s, An American in Paris, and Dvorak’s, From the New World, which was written mostly in New York.

We have friends and relatives who love High End sound equipment and tell us how much like a “real orchestra” their system sounds. Their systems are wildly expensive, and sound great. But with my subscription seat which is a teeny fraction of the cost of their systems, I sit up in the third tier of Avery Fisher Hall,  all the way to the front of the house, and I can hear and see everything so gloriously. Even the conductor’s score, and the musicians faces. Just my cup of tea.

The program that night was: Rossini Overture to La Scala Seta( The Silken Ladder), Mendelssohn’s Symphony No 4 (Italian), and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 6 the Pathetique, conducted by Lorin Maazal. Buy yourself a ticket and enjoy this great orchestra. The program notes for each concert and about the musicians are fascinating and available online.

Hillary and Barack, and tomorrow’s primary, are the topics of conversation at every dinner, phone call and meeting. This is unique, I can not recall a time when so many people were so engaged in a primary here in New York. 

Let’s start with names and perception: Hillary is not a just a current, blond, female tv character named “Hillary”, a character for us to either “love” or “hate” and be amused.

She is New York’s Senator,  Hillary Rodham Clinton, and she has earned  true support and popularity in both this state and in this city. She is expected to win easily here because she deserves to win- she has earned it.

“Barack Obama” is not a competing sit-com character or someone to favor on a “reality tv show” or vote for in a popularity contest, neither is he some new age messiah come to fulfil our wishes.

He is a candidate for  US President.  He is an attractive, nice man with great rhetoric and not enough political history to have actually tested his mettle. He is too unclear for me, considering the capable leadership we desparately need to make repairs after this administration leaves office.

Rebecca Wallace-Segall and Deborah Siegel have co-authored a great piece about tomorrow’s election in The Huffington Post, please read it. I have also added their blogs to my blogroll.

Please read Goodbye To All That (#2)  by Robin Morgan a great essay about Hillary Clinton and the media’s sexism. I have added the Women’s Media Center to the blogroll too.

Also, the city cheered and celebrated the Giant’s Superbowl win last night. People walked around town nodding, smiling and congratulating each other, savoring the win.

Tomorrow, we will have the primary election, plus the usually crazy traffic and quite a bit extra, and the pleasant chaos of a tickertape parade.

By the way, there is no longer any ticker-tape on Wall Street. They toss many tons of shredded paper from our “paperless” society, etc. The feeling of celebration and the honor from the city is exactly the same.

Brilliant Klezmer musician Andy Statman, along with other musicians, play regularly at the Charles Street Shul, aka Derech Emunah (Path of Faith) in the Village. Last night we experienced concert number 431 at the shul. The shul has been hosting Andy’s concerts since 1998.

This is truly an experience, it is not just a simple matter of attending a concert.

Concert time was 8:30, we arrived at 8:30, so of course we were 45 minutes early and we helped set up the chairs in the long, narrow library/meeting room a flight below the sanctuary.  We were also treated like family: greeted by Director, Herman Lowenharr and his  3 year old grand-daughter– so cute, so smart, so sweet, she showed us the lovely party dress that was being hand-sewn for her, and let us play silly games with her, and home-made brownies were pulled from the oven before burning and offered to us.  Nice. 

The concert had a full house, and the music was glorious. Andy Statman on clarinet with a drummer played Chasidic niggunim in Andy’s unique style. Andy takes you on an emotional trek through each piece. Then after a short break, Andy switched instruments and genres, and played his mandolin in Bluegrass style along with a visiting Singer/Guitarist, and the drummer. It was excellent music and pure fun. He has a long history in a Bluegrass style.

Check out their schedule and go. There are Jazz nights as well. All too good to miss.

This link will take you to Jon Kalish’s excellent interview with Andy Statman which includes his trio playing at the shul, and Andy on mandolin.  

http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=DerechAmuno&p=r

The photo of the shul was taken by Hubert J Steed.

If the full posting didn’t display, please enter “Limmud”  in the GothamGirl search screen to the left in order to see the article and comments.

Limmud NY filled the Nevele Grande in the Catskills with about 1,000 people for their annual study event during the long Martin Luther King, Jr weekend. Limmud means “study” in Hebrew. There were over 350 study sessions, workshops and films over the four days. There was a camp for the kids. Many different style minyans were held and there was a shuk selling books and Judaica, also many organizations looking for volunteers and distributing information.

The participants came mostly from the North East of the US but there was a sizable number of Brits, Canadians (of course) and lots of Californians, and some Israelis. All ages came, there were many families with children, many of high school and university students too.

It was an incredible marathon with so many choices and activities, and so many interesting people to meet. Really wonderful. There were many performers including musicians, comics, and a one-man play. Events started and 7:30 am and ended at 2 or 3 am…It was sometimes difficult to choose exactly what to attend. My friend told me the best joke of the event:

How do you tell the neurotic from the psychotic at an event like this? The neurotics do not sleep and the psychotics don’t go to the bathroom.

The sessions we attended had real variety, intellect and depth, once I stumbled into a “new age” class and left quickly- not my cup of tea at all, but the others in the room were happy…very happy with it. I have a limited appetite for Kabbalah, or demons and devils as well…it is the “Litvak” in me that just cannot  listen to this for very long but I did go to a session about all of this stuff. I did enjoy the sessions on the Mussar movement. There was something for everyone.

I attended a few discussions which were a true pleasure. People of differing opinions discussing serious topics with respect and humor, that is without the bile and without monsterizing the other’s opinions as we usually hear in so-called “discussions” the media.

One was “Who Wrote the Torah- a Conversation on Bible Scholarship and Faith” with Everett Fox, Nigel Savage, Rachel Berkovits, and Danial Goldfarb. Excellent.

There were many films, and an extraordinary session with slides on the history, false Soviet propaganda and reality of Birobijan, the soviet “Jewish” state, by a person who was born there. The slides were incredible: a soviet brochure with photos of palm trees (!) in Siberia, moving stories of the people who came in hope and mostly experienced tragic ends.

Alicia Svigals, the great Klezmer fiddler not only played on Sunday night for a dancing, happy crowd which included dancing children (who the adults lifted up in chairs during the dancing) and dancing adults in the Nevele nightclub called the “Stardust Room”. I love these Catskills- this evening was timeless! The next day, Alicia lead a session on the history of Klezmer music, played some excerpts and also explained why so many “Jewish” names come from instruments such as Feidler, and Zimbalist etc. It was all fun.

We had hoped to get to the indoor pool and to take a freezing walk in the snowy woods, but we were just too busy. I did see about thirty Canada Geese fly in and land on the half-frozen lake honking loudly and we had a great view of the mountains from our window…

My best and most extraordinary moment: meeting the warm, happy woman I would never have expected to be at Limmud. We had not seen each other since she was a teen about 25 years ago. She had lived with our family for a short time. It must be the real reason I was meant to be there.

One more note: Limmud takes place in many locations around the world, and will be at the Nevele next year. If you look up the Nevele Grande on the net you will see horrible reviews which have no validity at all. I do not know who those writers are or what their motivation was but I can tell you that what they wrote is completely untrue. The Nevele is clean, perfectly pleasant and the staff was helpful and always positive.

This is the 350 anniversary of the Flushing Remonstrance, a document written by the residents of Flushing 1654, in protest of the policies of Peter Stuyvesant, the Governor of New Amsterdam, in response to his harassment and oppression of Quakers in this Dutch colony.

Last night we took part in a fascinating study workshop about the history and meaning of this document lead by Rivka Widerman, who is a retired attorney, law professor and scholar.  Historians feel this is the first document for separation of church and state and freedom of religion from that time period and may have influenced the writers of the US Constitution. Members of a local church took part in the workshop which was held at Congregation Ansche Chesed.

From the beginning, New Amsterdam/New York had a variety of people, religions, and more bars than churches…read Russell Shorto’s book “The Island in the Center of the World “ for an in depth, very readable history of this time period.

The same year as the Remonstrance, 22 Jewish people arrived in New Amsterdam from South America,  and were denied entry to the colony by Stuyvesant, but appealed to his employer, the Dutch West India Company, and won the right to live and pray here. The congregation they formed still exists, and is now called Congregation Shearith Israel also known as The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. They have a small museum in the synagogue and an historical society as well.

There still is a Dutch Reformed Church in Flushing and the local High School is named for John Bowne, the Quaker leader of that time period.

This is all worth noting because New York City is constantly rebuilding and reinventing itself, or as we say, “it’s a great city- if they ever finish it”. Unlike Boston  and Philadelphia, New York doesn’t focus very much on it’s own history even though there is so much history here.

Rivka said that she has presented this workshop in several locations around the city and always asks which issue would you choose to write a remonstrance about today. This is a short list of some the responses she has gotten:

environmental issues, freedom from prejudice about religion,  the immoral status of “illegal aliens”, the use of benign laws (such as zoning regulations) for purposes other than they were intended, reconsideration of the drug laws…an interesting list…

Even on a dark, gray rainy day there is always something new happening. This afternoon, after the rain stopped we noticed the Red-tailed Hawk soar by after pigeons and  spotted  six police officers and a suspect in a pink shirt and black cap, on a nearby rooftop! This not anything that we commonly see. It was a first.

One officer searched the rooftops. The others cuffed the suspect, secured him further with something that resembled reins or a leash.

The officers waved at a neighbor in a nearby window, and lowered the suspect carefully into the building onto the staircase or ladder that led to the roof.   The officers followed down the staircase and took the suspect’s full backpack and helmet with them.

We know nothing more.

We will let you know if we learn more. When we walk the dog, we will walk by and ask one of the best sources of local news: a doorman. Doormen are better than much media.

Considering going to the Big Apple Circus? Do it and take everyone along with you. This is a true gem of New York. Yesterday  we went with 6 children aged 4 to 11 years, one teen,  and  10 adults. There are no wild animal acts and  no elephants, and no “freak show”.  Some of you love “freak shows” but they are not here, you’ll have to get that eksewhere…

But there is Grandma the Clown, shown here with an actual Grandma, and since this is NY- a guy is Grandma the Clown, of course, a charming dog act, sets of breath-taking acrobats, living golden statues of incredible strength, an impossible to do slack tight rope act, more clowns, a live band, a terrific juggler, fun costumes, lights, junk food, circus toys, food sellers calling out in true NY accents, and general circus pizzaz.

Best of all,  these are real people, performing extraordinary acts live. A relief from TV or computor images and games. Real people sometimes miss or make a mistake, as happened,  and do a trick it all over again, until they succedd. Nice. Good example.

This is a not-for-profit circus with a very big heart. See their website for details of their community work in classrooms and hospitals.

They set up a large heated tent in Lincoln Center, and since this circus is not overwhelming in size, and you sit in the round,  you can see well from just about anywhere. Discounted seats are available through TDF and other outlets.

Did we like it? We love it and we go most years.

Last night’s appearance of Twisted Sister at the FillmoreNY was a fantastic party for their fans and for the band. Twisted heavy metal waves of love went from the band to the audience and the audience did the same back. The audience was a spectrum of ages and types. The moshers moshed to Twisted’s Christmas songs like their heavy metal Come All Ye Faithful. Really hilarious and wonderful!

They were called back for more, of course and gave their fans several more songs, the most fun was My Heavy Metal Christmas to the melody of the Twelve days of Christmas. They held up hand-made signs with the new heavy metal lyrics and the fans sang along in complete enjoyment. It was really fun.

Dee said at the beginning of the set, that unlike certain bands that only complain about life they were into having a  a good time and enjoying life. They completely proved that. They played their Christmas  songs and also did many old favorites like, The Price , We’re Not Gonna Take It, and You can’t Stop Rock and Roll. They wished everyone Merry Christmas, Happy Hanuka and even a Happy Kwanza…and ended O Come Let Us with the line “Jesus was a Jew”. Outside of NYC that can be controvertial. It was a sick MF Christmas show.

We have decided to stay in town for the holiday week and go many places, I will write about each event afterwards. So to begin our week:

Tonight we will be at The Fillmore NY for Twisted Sister’s “holiday concert”.  I need to buy better ear plugs so that I can emerge without  my head banging on its own. I’ve done this before, I am a fan. You can still hear everything perfectly well with the plugs in, just no ringing ears for days afterwards.

And Saturday afternoon we will visit one of those precious  jewels of NYC, The Big Apple Circus which is located in a tent on a plaza in Lincoln Center. We will go in a large group of 18 family and friends including 6 children under 10 years old.

I have been tagged by Rebecca Wallace-Segall of WritopiaLab in a “meme” which is a game of Bloggers Tag. Additional details of this game and it’s tagging history can be found on Rebecca’s entry on the WritopiaLab’s blog. Rebecca, thank you for the tag.

The question posed in game is: Who are the teachers who have most personally influenced you and how?” 

1) My Aunt Sarah. My Dad had many sisters and Sarah was the one most like him. They were immigrants: toughened by harder lives, extremely capable of doing many extaordinary things, very funny since humor is the best defense, warm and best of all, good teachers and  very supportative. When I was only 5 years old, Aunt Sarah taught me how to crochet, knit, and cut fabric with a large sharp scissors. This is not so easy for a young child with small hands but today young children seem not to be allowed to even consider touching tools, much less sharp ones. She just said that I should “do it!” and I did.  Aunt Sarah told me that I have “golden hands” and could make anything I want to. This pronouncement was a  spectacular gift of encouragement which I have used for my lifetime.

When my Dad wanted to turn a porch in our summer home into a room, he called Aunt Sarah.In a weekend together they framed the porch in wood, added windows, laid a new tile floor, made seating benches and upholstered them. A case of four “golden hands”  working together. They joked and laughed as they worked. Clearly a woman could do anything she wanted to do, …another  great lesson and a gift.

2) My friend Rochelle Saidel. Rochelle uses all of her talents and education  in complete dedication to her work. She is an example of an ideal of focus and determination, which I would would like to emulate and attain.

I tag:

Rochelle G. Saidel  of  Remember the Women Institute

We sailed the upper harbor on the Spirit of New York on a very cold and clear windy night with a party of friends from work. The ship docks at Chelsea Piers…glinting black water, sparkling lights of the City, the necklaces of bridges, moving streams of the lights of cars on the FDR. It was so beautiful that even New Jersey was a pleasure to see. (Note to non-New Yorkers reading this: this is a shocking statement for a NYer to make. It means that it was a wildly beautiful night).

The ship lingered for about 10 minutes at the Statue of Liberty, and I walked out onto the outside deck, without wearing my coat, and admired her in the wind and  20 something degree weather and very happily shivering. We had dinner aboard, the entertainment was light and fun.

The lower deck had a DJ and  what looked like a herd of people of all ages, including children,  kind of sync/dancing to disco, actually having nice fun. The dinner service was very positive…not one surly wait person. Best of all, even I, poor Lily, who has felt motion sickness on a cross- town bus as it lurched through traffic, had no problem!

The  very compelling memoir of Gemma La Guardia Gluck, the sister of the truly beloved mayor of New York City, Fiorello La Guardia, is a stunning story which starts in New york City’s Greenwich Village,  moves to the “wild west” of the Dakotas, includes the American midwest, Italy, Hungary, and Gemma’s internment in Ravensbruck concentration camp as a political hostage by the Nazis while Fiorello was mayor, and Gemma’s survival and return to  New York City.

Gemma’s story is the focus of an exhibit at Hebrew Union College on West 4th Street, a fitting location since it is close by to where Gemma’s story begins.  On Decemeber 12, there will be a program and reception.

The program features “a conversation and book signing with Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, editor of Gemma La Guardia Gluck’s memoir. She will discuss La Guardia family history and Jewish roots, as well as Gemma’s experiences during the Holocaust in Hungary and Ravensbrück women’s concentration camp, and as a displaced person in war-torn Berlin.”

Gemma’s memoir opens a window of insight about how we can be lulled by our routine of daily life and the hope that unpleasant times could just pass us by, that we might not recognize danger at our doorstep. It is clear example of a woman in history whose story could  be overlooked and buried, which would be a sad loss.

Many thanks to Rochelle for not letting this happen to Gemma’s story. See you on December 12 at HUC.